The Mouse That Roared is a 1959 Peter Sellers movie based on the book by Leonard Wibberley. The small duchy of Grand Fenwick launches a war against the United States in order to lose and then collect sorely needed rebuilding funds. But it doesn't work out the way they planned. This was one of my favorite movies as a kid.
It was one of MY favourites as a kid too, Miss C! I saw it several times on TV and read the novel at least twice, maybe three times. I thought it was the funniest plot and of course I loved Peter Sellers in all the main roles!
ReplyDeleteWibberley wrote five 'Grand Fenwick' novels in the 1950s and '60s. The Mouse that Roared started it off in 1955, followed by a prequel, Beware of the Mouse (1958); The Mouse on the Moon (1962), which poked fun at the space race; and The Mouse on Wall Street (1969), which took on the machinations of Wall Street. Then, after a decade-long hiatus, he took on the politics of the energy crisis and published The Mouse That Saved The West (1981). They're all worth a read, especially the 'Moon' and the 'Wall Street' ones.
ReplyDeleteYou might be able to find them at your local library, or through inter-library loan if yours doesn't have them any longer. Sad to say, libraries do discard books after a while; they just don't have the room to keep EVERYTHING, especially older material that doesn't get checked out any more and just takes up shelf space.
-"BB"-
I haven't read the books, but The Mouse on the Moon was a decent movie. It had a killer plot, but it didn't have Peter Sellers.
ReplyDeleteI was just reading about Jean Seberg, and I see a close comparison between the story of her tormented real life and the life of the in-story-actress in /The Lives of Others/.
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